The Ultimate Goal

NOt really a new debate - the assets returned matter - the sam trade if it happens matters (cause it gets rid of willie green in its rumored makeup) - but also the contract he re-signs to matters as well - more worried about length - no more than 3 years and i prefer 2 with some sort of buy out option...a longer deal shouldn't be signed and they should STILL be looking to improve the depth

Yeah, I don't see them signing him for more than 3 years, but it's possible, I suppose. The main point is that there's a very real threshold where keeping him even if he walks is more valuable than trading him, and I've yet to see a legitimate rumor where the return exceeds that threshold.

Nash's deal is like what John is alluding to I believe. The last year is partially guaranteed for 6 million.(about half)

I have absolutely no idea how much a year Miller would cost. I am ssuming >8 for sure. That is about all I know. Maybe they can sign him for 8, 9, 10(5 million fully guaranteed) or something like that.

Partial guarantees are pretty rare. The only ones I know of are VCarter's and Nash's beyond mimimum salary guys. I don't think any Sixers have any. I think Willie did, but his knee has been healthy so he met the reqs for it to be guaranteed or something like that.

Which one of those three teams is going to try and sign Andre miller? After that you're talking MLE money aren't you? So you don't have to offer much more - and I believe the sixers are able to offer a higher 'percentage' raise year over year than other teams, regardless of base...so a 3 year MLE from the sixers and a 3 year MLE from any other team aren't EXACTLY the same vlaue - the sixers contract is worth more money. I think

The situation is pretty good for the Sixers. That is for sure. Things change though. And I don't think you are going to convince a player coming off 2 of his best scoring seasons to take a huge pay cut like the MLE would be.

Let's assume that Detroit/Memphis/Toronto have no interest in miller long term (based on their rosters/positions a reasonable assumption)

For the sake of argument - assume no one else clears cap room between now and free agency.

There are 27 teams left with the ability to offer Miller a contract - none really more than the MLE.

The sixers can offer a better raise percentage year over year.

All things being equal - the sixers can offer the better 3 year deal than any of the other teams.

Now - if some team is willing to offer him 4 or 5 years - more power to them - but all things being equal - the sixers "MLE Base" is better than anyone elses.

As for your 'huge paycut' comment - take a look over at MLB and tell me how guys aren't going to take big paycuts. WHther or not it impacts the games, teams are using the economy as an excuse to under pay guys (unless you're the phillies) based on their pervious years performances.

Factor in also the 2010 factor - so many people are obsessed with it.

Andre Miller is going to be hard pressed to find any kind of long term deal if he isn't willing to take less than his 10 mil salary this year - it just won't be there.

If a team wants to offer him 10 mil - they need help from the sixers - which is good for the sixers too.

I find it hard to believe any team will offer him more than 3 years based on his age and the perception of miller around the league (True or not) that he isn't an elite point guard

While he may not be able to get more than the MLE elsewhere, I don't think the Sixers would try to leverage that and risk having him walk. I'm not sure just having higher percentage raises would be enough to insure he doesn't leave. $8M/year seems right to me, over 3 years.

I have a ton of respect for Miller as a player.. but he rapidly is turning into a tweener. He just can't guard PGs.

Part of why the Sixers start Green is so that he can guard faster PG's for Miller. Miller can keep up with SG's, but you can't expect you SG to always be able t guard the opposing PG- esp if you expect Iguodala at SG, Young at PG.

If they are using Lou/Ivey/Green to cober the PG for Miller now, imagine what it will be like in 2 years, unless you think Miller should be laying SG.

I'm sorry, but I haven't seen any evidence of this. If anything, they use Miller to cover for Willie on better SGs.

CP3 and Rodo both had good games against the Sixers, which probably isn't that much of a shock, CP3 has good games against everyone and Rondo isn't going to be a focus for anyone. Other than that, they've done a very good job on opposing points.

Can you point to one instance where teams have picked on Miller, or isolated him on his man and he was abused? If anything, I think Miller takes the tougher backcourt defensive assignment on a nightly basis and does a very good job with it.

Will he slow down over the next two or three years? Yeah, I'd expect he will, but as of this moment I have no problem with the defense Miller plays and on the list of "problems" this team has, I don't think Miller's defense would even crack the top ten.

Wow, thank you so, so much for SOMEONE finally making sense of basketball teams and winning. You make complete sense and appreciate you putting some sanity in building a winner. Thank you, keep up the great job!

I'll keep an eye on it, but I have very, very rarely seen Miller as a defensive liability. He got torched by Rose a couple of times, couldn't really stay in front of Paul, otherwise, I've seen him as more of a strength and the numbers kind of back that up, at least for this season. Just going by memory, I think Miller's starting out guarding 2's when the other team has a particularly good 2, rather than when they have a particularly quick 1.

Now that's the kind of write-up I've come to know Depressed Fan as; pertinent analysis without all the computer generated stats. You said a mouthful at the end of one of the paragraphs when you said '..Let's enjoy it.' While it is so easy to get frustrated with particular games or debate flaws or faults with individual players and the team as a whole, you somehow realize that the journey of the season has passed you by before you know it.

Regardless of the end result of the season, which no matter the opinion is totally unknown, you have to sometimes 'live in the moment' and soak in what may or may not be happening each game-night with this team. While we all want the same destination as fans (a championship), enjoying the transformations, progress, and maturity of the team throughout a season can sometimes be just as fulfilling.

Brian - I'm assuming you'll read this article and hopefully not dismiss it out of hand like I'm sure some will. There were two things that caught my attention - the discussion about blocks (which i've been saying myself for a while - i wish blocks were tracked separately) and the 'location' of 3 pointers taken - have you ever looked at either of these during a sixers string of games.

Damn, synergy sports is probably pretty useful on that 3 point thing :)

I rarely dismiss anything out of hand and I love Michael Lewis. It was a really good article, in particular I liked the stuff about how Battier uses his head to help his team, like leaving his man to help box out the opposing center, etc.

I'd love to see some of the advanced stats and analysis Houston uses. I've seem some glimpses of very basic stuff concerning the Sixers, like the shot chart w/ the court broken down into sectors.

I would track some of this stuff during games, but it's hard to distinguish what's useful information unless you have a huge body of data.

Yeah, kind of figured, plus with the 3 pointers i would think it's hard to define the zones during the game. YAhoo has a 'gamecast' that indicates shot location - but I don't know if they have historical stuff available.

Then again, I'm sure someone has done the zone data and it's just not available to us :)

One thing I've noticed is that Iguodala rarely uses the corner, and almost never shoots from the baseline. If you think about it, can you remember him taking a two-point jumper from anywhere besides the elbow area of the floor? That might be something that's a key for him to add to his game, it'd make him harder to defend.